Astrid Tate

Name: Astrid Jennifer Tate

Gender: Female

Age: 18

Grade: Senior

School: Cochise High School

Hobbies and Interests: Soccer, medicine, history (specifically medieval), generally keeping in shape, vegetarian cooking

Appearance: Astrid reaches an even 6’0”, and weighs 145lbs. She’s received more than a few comments on her height in the past, but she mostly takes it in stride; she likes being tall, and, aside from banging her head against several cabinets and the like, she hasn’t found many downsides to it. Her weight is distributed evenly, for the most part, but her soccer practice and general exercise means she has some good muscle in her legs. She’s Caucasian, but tanned thanks to spending a lot of time outside. Astrid’s approach to makeup is very inconsistent; she’ll wear it when she feels like it, usually wearing foundation and mascara, and so it’s nearly impossible to predict what days she’ll have it on. She’s also been known to visit tanning salons during the winter months when it’s less sunny in order to maintain her tan.

The most notable of Astrid’s facial features is, by far, the dark grey eye patch covering her right eye. She’s had an eye covering since she was ten, after an incident at school left her without sight in that eye. She is aware that other, less obtrusive eye coverings exist, but she uses a patch for two reasons. The first is that she’s used it for so long, she’s gotten used to it, and that anything else would feel slightly weird. The second is that her sister likes the patch, thinking it makes Astrid look like a pirate, and as Astrid adores her younger sister she is happy to indulge in this little fantasy. Her sightless eye’s opposite number is large and sapphire blue in colour. As for the rest of her facial features, Astrid’s nose is slightly smaller than most. She has thin eyebrows, and a slightly thin mouth which is often seen in the form of a confident smile. She has no piercings, even though she’s frequently contemplated getting some, as she personally believes they would be too much of a hassle to remove every time she wanted to exercise. Astrid does, however, have a small tattoo of a celtic cross on her right wrist in white ink, which shows up decently well against her tanned skin, as well as a very recent tattoo of a fox on her right shoulder blade, again in white ink. Astrid has long black hair, reaching midway down her back and with bangs framing her face.

When it comes to clothing, Astrid generally dresses casually. She normally chooses to wear tank tops or t-shirts in lighter colours, coupled with either a leather jacket or her prized light blue track jacket. When not playing soccer or otherwise exercising, she prefers to wear knee length skirts, again in lighter colours. She’s much less picky about the type of shoes she wears, and will generally throw on a pair of trainers, whatever the weather.

When Astrid was abducted, she wore her light blue track jacket over a white tank top, with a sapphire blue skater skirt and a pair of slightly battered white trainers.

Biography: Astrid is the first child of Sally and Gregory Tate, and has lived her entire life in Kingman. The Tate family previously lived in a small town several miles from Kingman, but moved there after Sally secured a job as a doctor at the Kingman Regional Medical Center, to make life easier for themselves. Gregory is currently between careers, previously working as web support and customer service for a fairly large company that went under about a year ago, and as such works at a small convenience store within Kingman at present, although he is currently in the interview process for a couple of other companies. Astrid also has a younger sister, Sophie, who is five years her junior and whom she absolutely adores. Astrid gets on perfectly happily with her father, but she considers her mother her hero and idol, and has done ever since she discovered exactly what her job entailed. Whilst both Sally and Gregory love Astrid dearly, and are both happy that she is so driven towards very clear goals, they are concerned about her rather abrasive nature.

The first few years of Astrid’s life were fairly unremarkable. She was content with both reading and doodling inside, and with playing outdoors with other children her age. She did have a tendency to be a rather bossy child, however, wanting everyone around her to play what she wanted and to make sure she won, and sulking whenever anything didn’t go her way.

The first major instance in Astrid’s life was her interest in soccer. Her first proper exposure to the sport came during the 2003 Women’s World Cup. She had paid little attention to the Men’s World Cup the previous year, but the fact that the Women’s World Cup was being televised took her by surprise, as she had no idea such a thing actually existed. The fact that females were competing on a global stage was a huge deal for her, as she had been under the impression beforehand that sports such as soccer and football were a male-only sport. After watching the opening match, she was instantly hooked on the sport. There was something that appealed to her about how even though the rules were so simple, it was still a sport that required a huge amount of effort, commitment and passion.

Only a few days after the World Cup had ended, Astrid realised how much she missed the sport. With encouragement from her parents, who both were happy that their daughter had found an interest that she was totally invested in, Astrid joined the school soccer team. At the same time, she began to look through fliers and local papers to see whether there were any soccer teams or courses particularly geared towards girls. Due to this, she was subjected to some teasing from other children her age, particularly from boys who were under the mindset that girls couldn’t play soccer. It was perhaps this that first well and truly showcased Astrid’s determination and drive to succeed at whatever she put her mind to. Rather than letting the taunts get to her, and severely affecting her, she used them to help her improve at the sport. She wanted to prove that she was not only able to play, but also that she could play better than a large amount of her peers.

When Astrid was ten, however, she was the victim of some incredible ill fortune during an incident at school. During recess one day, Astrid was not in a particularly energetic mood, so she quietly sat and read the book she was currently reading. Unfortunately, a few of her rowdier classmates had decided to play a game nearby, which involved firing small paper pellets from rubber bands at each other. No real damage was caused until one of Darius van Dyke’s shots went wide of its target and flew towards Astrid. By sheer misfortune, she happened to glance up seconds before the pellet hit her. The missile hit her directly in the right eye. Despite immediately seeking medical help, the damage was done. The pellet had damaged her eye to the extent that she completely lost vision in it.

Astrid was forced to wear an eyepatch for the first few months after the incident occurred, and it seemed like her tenure on her soccer team was over. For several weeks, Astrid was very unlike her usual self. She was terrified that she’d lost everything she’d worked for in terms of playing soccer, and she was terrified about how everything in her life would change, and as such would spend a lot of time cooped up in her room, tucked up under the covers of her bed. When at school or outside of home, she would be just as withdrawn, avoiding talking to her friends and peers due to fears that she would be viewed as a freak. Sometimes she would end up feeling so overwhelmed that she ended up snapping at her friends, which caused some deterioration in her relationships. Darius eventually apologised for the accident, but Astrid couldn’t forgive him for it, and still absolutely detests him, even though he seems truly remorseful for it.

After a while, however, Astrid’s determined nature took effect. She realised that she wouldn’t be able to instantly go back to playing soccer on the school team, but that didn’t prevent her from playing the sport she loved altogether. She would spend hours in the back garden, simply kicking a ball against the shed or the fence, trying to adjust herself to her now much smaller field of vision. After a while, Astrid gradually expanded this, making homemade versions of training exercises; she would stick targets to the side of the shed to aim for, and create slaloms out of empty flower pots. It took almost a year for Astrid to be satisfied that she was reaching the same sporting abilities that she had possessed before the accident, and even then her coach wasn’t entirely convinced. They were happy to have Astrid train with the team, but they weren’t prepared to have her even start on the bench just yet; they were concerned for her self esteem if it turned out she wasn't up to the level of her teammates. Whilst disappointed and annoyed at this, as she believed she was more talented and put in more effort than a good number of her teammates, Astrid said little publicly and instead focused her energy on pushing herself to the limit in training, hoping that, eventually, her coach would see her desire to play.

Astrid now views her recovery from the trauma of the accident with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the fact that she was able to bring herself around from the worst period of her life to carry on living as normally as possible is yet another thing that drives Astrid forwards to achieve what she desires. She believes that if she can get through her accident mostly unscathed, then there should be very little that can stand in her way. On the other hand, she doesn’t like dwelling on it for very long; she hates the fact that, for a while, she was completely helpless and, in her mind, useless. Plus, she realises that she’ll never know what her life might have been like had the accident never occurred, given she’s had to slowly but surely relearn a lot of her life skills over the years, such as adapting to reading and writing with half of her sight now missing. This is a large part of the reason why she never has, and most likely never will, forgive Darius; the incident, for her, was just too much of a big deal to be fixed via an apology.

Whilst soccer has been Astrid’s number one hobby for quite a while, her lifelong hero and idol comes from a very different path. From a young age, Astrid knew that her mother was a doctor, but it wasn’t until after asking several probing questions that she understood exactly what Sally was required to do in her line of work. As far as Astrid sees it, there is nothing braver or more heroic than being able to heal other people and potentially save lives, and although she loves soccer, her lifelong dream has been to emulate her mother and enter the field of medicine. To that end, Astrid started taking various first-aid courses and classes, whenever and wherever around Kingman, as well as pestering her mother with various questions about medicine and treating injuries. Thanks to this, she is currently able to administer basic first-aid, as well as perform techniques such as CPR reliably. At first she had only been trained in these techniques informally by Sally, but recently, after taking a number of first-aid courses, these have been certified. Astrid initially wanted to become a surgeon, although that was mostly due to it fitting her main idea of what a doctor was like, but that avenue was almost entirely taken off the table after her accident. She still wonders as to what might have been if she had been able to continue the path to being a surgeon, but in a more wistful manner, as she is generally happy as long as she’s able to help people in need. Although she is currently unsure of what it might actually be, Astrid still knows that she wants to pursue a career in medicine in some format.

Around the age of fourteen, Astrid developed a new mindset. This had slowly been building up in the back of her mind for a while, and finally made itself known after she saw her general practitioner smoking whilst walking in the park. In her view, people who couldn’t look after themselves shouldn’t be allowed to look after and care for other people, and she wanted to make sure she was as healthy and fit as possible. Although she already participated in soccer, she also figured that if she did further training and exercise outside of soccer practice she would be able to permanently stake a claim for a first place spot. She began to start doing things like jogging around the neighbourhood and doing push ups and sit ups in her bedroom, sporadically at first before she eventually developed a regular routine. Astrid still maintains this routine, having now replaced doing push ups in her bedroom with visiting the gym. Unfortunately, this has also led to Astrid gaining a good deal of arrogance; she sees herself as a generally better person than people who don’t keep in as good shape as her, and as stated, she particularly disregards people she does not consider fit who are planning on working in a job that requires them to look after other people. She mostly keeps this to herself, but has let her disdain shown a couple of times during heated arguments, generally manifesting as rather personal jabs, which has given her more than a couple of enemies over the years. This rarely happens, only occurring when Astrid seriously loses her cool, but those who she has shown her disdain to have very negative feelings about her. In some sense, Astrid feels bad about her outbursts, both due to her losing her cool and that she’s truly hurt people with them, but she attempts to rationalise them by telling herself that she’d never react that way to a true friend. Due to this, as well as Astrid getting along so well with Sophie and idolising Sally, Astrid's family never really witnesses Astrid’s behaviour around her peers, but her stubbornness can make itself apparent at home, and they’ve had to have several talks with Astrid as to whether everything is alright at school, to which Astrid will always reply that everything is fine.

On top of creating a regular exercise routine for herself, Astrid will, from time to time, look up healthy recipes from the internet or her father’s cookbooks and try her hand at them. She enjoys cooking and creating recipes, but she doesn’t do it too often for her own benefit. The majority of healthy recipes she finds, she doesn’t enjoy, and she is also not the greatest cook in the world, not that she would admit it to anyone. However, she is able to frequently cook for her sister. Sophie is vegetarian, and although Gregory tolerates cooking meals, he finds it tiring to prepare a separate meal for her. As Astrid does enjoy cooking a lot more, it gives her the chance to do so without having to eat food she doesn’t particularly like. Sophie will often sit in the kitchen with her homework whilst Astrid cooks, as the two sisters enjoy each others company greatly.

At school, Astrid does generally well in most subjects. She actively works as hard as she can in all of her classes, wanting to make sure she succeeds in whatever she attempts. She is also very good at learning from her mistakes; if she gets a low mark on a test, for instance, she will look for exactly why she did poorly and work to make sure it never happens again. Astrid excels at PE, but she is also excellent at history, especially when it comes to dealing with the medieval period. The huge difference in how people lived from as short a time as a hundred year gap fascinated her for a start. She herself can’t exactly explain why the medieval period of history interests her more than any other, but one reason is that there is simply so much to discover from that era, spanning the entire globe. Although she makes certain that she completes her homework and assignments to the best of her abilities, she prioritises history over any of her other subjects.

Aside from her soccer teammates and a select few others who mostly share Astrid’s interests, Astrid’s circle of friends is fairly small. She's been in a couple of brief relationships over the years, that were terminated quickly, partially due to a clash of personalities, but mostly due to Astrid lacking almost any romantic interest whatsoever. She is still interested in brief, casual flings and sex, and so after some research and deliberation, she describes herself as aromantic; even if its not 100% correct, it's the label she feels most comfortable using. Astrid is incredibly determined to succeed at whatever she puts her mind to, and she holds little time for anyone who isn’t prepared to put in 100%. This mindset has led to her being given many labels, the most common of which are that she is abrasive and stuck-up. This reputation is not helped by the fact that, since she works so hard at whatever she does, Astrid is used to succeeding at things. As such, she can be incredibly stubborn, especially during group projects, adopting a mentality in which anyone opposed to her views is wrong. In any situation in which Astrid has a decent amount of knowledge about the subject at hand, she is absolutely convinced that her ideas and visions are superior to almost anyone else's, given that, as already mentioned, she is used to succeeding at what she does via her own hard work and efforts. If, however, Astrid’s ideas or style of working end up failing or being wrong, she will become much more subdued, as she sees it as a severe blow to her ego. At this point, she will be a lot more receptive to other people's’ ideas for a good while, whilst she tries to figure out what went poorly and why. There’s a bit of a joke amongst those who dislike Astrid that she’s about five times more likable during her more self-doubting moments. In Astrid’s defence, she does learn from her mistakes, and has begun to change the way she’ll go about things if it’s evident they’re not going well. As well as that, depending on the severity of her mistakes, she will sometimes apologise to anyone involved. In most cases, the damage has already been done, with people being driven away by what they see as abrasiveness and single-mindedness, but she has managed to make up with a few people she’s wronged in the past. Astrid isn’t too bothered by those who won’t accept her apologies, for the most part. She is happy with her circle of friends, and her slightly arrogant nature means she isn’t too bothered by those she pushes away, as she is generally convinced that she is in the right in almost any situation.

Advantages: Fit from playing soccer and her general exercise regimes, Astrid is in good shape, and is able to run for fairly long distances without tiring. Her knowledge of medicine, although limited to minor injuries, could still help out on the island. Astrid also knows techniques such as CPR. Her determination and drive to succeed at whatever she attempts could lead Astrid to overcoming otherwise difficult obstacles. Astrid does learn from her mistakes, although on the island, a single mistake could be enough to do her in.

Disadvantages: What Astrid describes as determination can, and has, easily been seen as abrasiveness and single-mindedness, and she could easily drive away potential allies by not listening to them. This interpretation of abrasiveness means Astrid already has her fair share of enemies amongst her peers. Astrid is very stubborn, and will not back down from the path she chooses; even if said path leads straight to her own downfall. The lack of vision from her right eye could prove a hindrance in case someone attempts to sneak up on her from that direction, although given she’s lived with it for the past eight years, she has learnt to adapt to her impairment. Her depth perception, however, is something that still gives her issues, meaning that every so often she misjudges her reach and how far away objects truly are.

Designated Number: Female student No. 034

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Designated Weapon: Fake gun that fires a "Bang!" flag

Conclusion: It's a shame this girl got the fake gun, I liked her chances and still kinda do. On the other hand I hope she or someone else never realises that the guns fake, the look on their face will be priceless. - Josie Knight

'The above biography is as written by Pippin. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: Pippin

Kills: None

Killed By: Isabel Ramirez

Collected Weapons: Fake gun that fires a "Bang!" flag (assigned weapon, to Alessio Rigano), Pickaxe (from Alessio Rigano)

Allies: None

Enemies: Penelope Fitzgerald, Alessio Rigano, Isabel Ramirez

Mid-game Evaluation: Astrid debated with herself to some degree when she woke, and immediately turned her gun on Lili Williams when she appeared on top of the bell tower. Astrid allowed Lili to stay, but was disinterested in what Lili had to say and allowed herself to assume Lili would be dead within the day. Astrid departed without much fanfare and sought shelter elsewhere. This led her into the asylum, and she encountered Eliza Luz outside a room Tyler Yazzie and Harold Porter were holed up in. Harold and Tyler agreed to let them in, though Astrid was insistent on keeping her gun out.

Once inside Astrid finally admitted, out loud, that she believed she had to kill someone. None of the others in the room receive this news especially well, and they all departed. Alone Astrid internally berated the others for what she believe to be naivety, and left to execute her plan. She went into the basement, set up a trap in the lobotomy lab so she would shoot the first person who entered through it's door. That first person was Penelope Fitzgerald, who entered in the morning of the 2nd day. Astrid was unable to take the shot, and Penelope found her hiding spot while searching the room. Announcements then came on, and Penelope began to sob while Astrid was at a loss for how to react. Astrid tried to comfort Penelope, and worked up the guts to imply that she intended to kill, to survive.

Penelope reacted as badly, if not worse, than the people Astrid had previously encountered, condemning Astrid for even considering her life above anyone else's. Astrid responded just as caustically, and Penelope capped things off by demanding that Astrid shoot her if she was so determined to kill. After a moment of angry internal reflection, Astrid justified to herself that Penelope wanted to die, so she complied. She pulled the trigger and revealed that her gun was fake, to both her and Penelope's shock. Penelope was even more upset by the revelation that Astrid truly would have killed her and left, but not without a final steely lecture imploring Astrid to rethink her position. She spent some time after, hours, wandering the asylum in a daze.

She eventually set up shop in the asylum's library, where she found the corpses of Joshua Bracewell and Samuel Howard. These, along with hearing the announcements, galvanized Astrid's rejection of Penelope's words and her intent to be the one morally worthy enough to leave island. She found herself a Lord of the Rings book and relaxed with it. Alessio Rigano found her. He deflected Astrid's attempts to figure out why he was bloodied, and her suspicions led her to threaten him with the fake gun. She told him to drop his weapon, and he did and Astrid got it. However when she tried to give him a chance to escape he instead charged and toppled one of the library shelves onto her. She was knocked prone and temporarily trapped, suffered a head wound, and the gun was thrown from her grasp, allowing Al to secure it before he ran off. She passed out as he ran away. She came to eventually, undiscovered by the outside world, and it took her an hour to pull herself out of the shelves. She found she'd been wounded in the abdomen by the pickaxe, and bound the wound, then she set off, finally prepared to kill.

However, she was not prepared to kill at the moment, and while she slowly hobbled to the shoreline she intended to procrastinate for a bit, delaying her kills so they'd be less noticeable when there were more multi-killers. She encountered Benjamin Lichter, and confronted him, but without intent to kill. She aggressively probed him, it took few questions to reveal his nigh borderline fearful obsession with Kimiko Kao, which bemused her. She contemplated his words and demeanor and remained vigilant, intent on never letting the incident with Al happen to her again. He asked about Lili, she relayed the info. The conversation was producing no further dividends, bemused and disappointed Astrid took off, believing Ben was the last person she'd ever have a 'normal' conversation with.

Come Day 4 Astrid mused on the deaths of the day while slowly stalking through the storehouse, looking for prey. She hypocritically grew to hate Al, among the other killers of the day, for his actions. Suddenly frustrated she began to sink a lot of effort into prying open a crate in the storehouse, looking for supplies. She even injured herself in the attempt, and predictably there was nothing useful inside.

Over the course of the next couple of days, Astrid made a full circuit of the island before arriving at the gym on Day 5. Despite her various injuries, her mood was lightened thanks to hearing about the death of Darius Van Dyke, the boy who had originally caused her eye injury in elementary school and whom she had a long-standing hatred for. She approached the gym, intending to rest if it was empty or to attempt to finally kill if someone was within. She continued to search, slowly, the darkness of the gym forced her to resort to her flashlight for navigation. That gave her away to the people actually hiding in the gym, Isabel Ramirez and Lily Caldwell, Isabel ambushed Astrid before the bewildered girl could respond. A quick swing had an immediately horrific result, Isabel had destroyed Astrid's remaining eye and Astrid was now helpless, in agony and groping about desperately. Isabel offered a muted apology, Astrid took it poorly and lashed out, spitting and demanding Isabel end it. Astrid's outburst was not responded to, as a result Astrid believed she'd been abandoned to die and her indomitable will kicked in, she slowly crawled and clawed for the exit. Isabel had not left, however, just as Astrid reached the door and had freedom in her grasp Isabel finished the job.

Post-Game Evaluation: Huh, well, that was pretty eye-opening. I could definitely see the pain she was going through there. - Josh Baines 

...Oh you are just the fucking worst. - Matt Richards

Memorable Quotes: ''“I’m going to end up killing someone, (...) I don’t know who. I don’t know when. But it’s going to happen. I’m not… I’m not dying here. I can’t." ''-- Her justification to Harold, Eliza, and Tyler.

''“We were friends, once. (...) But you’ve just fucking given up. I’m… I’d say I’m sorry, but I know you won’t believe me.”'' -- Her final words to Penelope before she pulls the trigger of the (fake) gun.

“''It’s been… fun. But I’ve got places to be. I’m not gonna see you again. (...) Good luck. If anyone needs it, it’s gonna be you.”'' -- Her parting words for Ben before she runs off to try to be a killer.

''“After everything I’ve done, everything I’ve torn down and built up, after going through fucking hell, some useless fucking nobody comes along and doesn’t even have the heart to finish me off? (...) Go on then. Fucking end this, you fucking coward! Just kill me already!”'' -- After Isabel blinded her, before Astrid starts trying to escape.

Threads
Below is a list of threads that contain Astrid, in chronological order.

V6 Pregame:
 * Skeletons and Spaghetti
 * The Dynamo of Volition
 * A Salad of Anger

V6:
 * New Destiny
 * Thirteen Steps
 * Quickdraw
 * Smoke Screen
 * A sea side view to rest the soul.
 * Collateral Damage
 * End of the Line

Related Threads in Meanwhile:
 * You Are My Heartbeat, My Silent Drum

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Astrid Tate. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''